Todd Fleming: If You Can't Wholesale After Listening To This, We've Got Nothing For You

April 06, 2018Todd Fleming

Todd Fleming is the CEO of Coalition Investments and founder of The Kingdom Real Estate. Todd breaks down how he got his start in real estate investing as a wholesaler and made the choice to find fulfillment in his career path. We also break down creative ways to create passive income within real estate investing. This past year, Todd also wrote the book If You Can't Wholesale After This: I've Got Nothing For You. - Volume 1 which is full of actionable advice. You can purchase the book at: https://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Wholesale-After-This/dp/1979137641
For more information on how to learn from Todd visit: https://thekingdomrealestate.com/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1:0:02Real estate investors, entrepreneurs and agents, and when the wife place unlocking the secrets to real estate investing and entrepreneurship. Welcome through that titanium bolts posted by Rj Bates. But third, here's RJ.

Speaker 2:0:26Hello and welcome to the titanium bulk onto your host, Rj Bates. Today I'm sitting down with Todd Fleming. Todd, how are you doing? I'm doing amazing and I can't thank you enough for the opportunity to pop it on here and speaking with you and speaking to your audience and seeing how we can help. Absolutely, man. So, uh, why don't you take a second to introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about what you do in real estate investing. Absolutely. So it's a lot of those. Start with basics. Yeah. So my name's Todd Fleming. I am. I've been investing full time, uh, for the last four or five years, my life. And I'm the author of, if you can't wholesale after this, I've got nothing for you, which is the first volume, first part of a three part series in which I am taking you through not only my journey, but the journey that you can take yourself and which if you have no money credits, experience and you're scared to death, it's perfectly fine.

Speaker 2:1:25And if you've thought about getting into real estate, that's a great book and a great resource to get you started because it's literally a step by step guide to getting you into real estate, if you will. And getting to a point where you can change your life if that's what you want to do. And real estate has done exactly that for me. So four or five years ago, I was actually a full time day trader in the stock market and not loving it for not only because of the volatility and the stress and the constantly watching every tick, uh, because I had to be in front of a computer screen all day, which is what I wanted to get away from. And living the nine to five life before that. And really struggling through it no matter how well I did at the job, I was really, really miserable.

Speaker 2:2:08And real estate is where I really found my, my entrepreneurial path. And then from then it's taken onto a owning educational companies and building communities in which people can move and strive forward and work on something similar and try and getting to the same, same goal or similar goal in which empowers each other. So that's, that's really where I started and where, you know, and who I am now. And that might be a really drawn out answer for just a couple of sentences. But, uh, that is where I am at currently. So I think you brought up a couple of great points are already a lot of our listeners. What I've found out about my listener base is a lot of people that are in a position where they want to get into real estate investing because they see people that are currently doing it and they're achieving some, some sort of financial freedom, but they don't really know how to get started.

Speaker 2:2:59And so, like you brought up your boat that you've authored part one, um, is a great resource. But let's talk about you personally. How did you make that step from going from being the day trader to becoming a full time real estate investor? Well, I think it's kind of a funny story almost, especially when you look back at maybe some things that, how you started, how others have started that you know, that are successful now and that people sometimes I fall into things if you will do to their environment or digital what's happening around them and then they kind of adapt to what's going on. So when I first started, I think a big thing, a big piece of it was that I finally had enough pain in my life that I had to change. It was not something that, you know, I'm pretty, can be pretty stubborn.

Speaker 2:3:47People can be really stubborn. People can have enough self awareness to know that they're miserable but not enough action and courage to leave the job. That they're miserable. I to pursue something that they might be great at or something that they might enjoy and be happy with. And so that for me was sitting at a nine to five desk for a year and a half even though knowing two weeks in that I was miserable. So it took me a year and a half to really pull the trigger. And I started in real estate. I can, I can, we can all probably think my mother. So funny story that my mom, I had mentioned that hey, you know, real estate was something that always kind of interested me. A saw other people doing it, but I never had any, you know, I was like, I don't have any money. How can you get into real estate? So what's the best way to learn real estate just to get your license right? Become a realtor. So I thought. So my mom actually cut out an ad in the newspaper. That's that gray paper that shows up on every once in a while that's still around.

Speaker 2:4:50So I got lucky enough that my mom actually cut out an ad from the newspaper for a local broker that was looking for a new license z and it said that they were going to accept, you know, two or three people out of everybody that showed up and guess who the only one that shows up. So by process of elimination I was able to get it so they were a so are going to be my broker side to go through the classes and everything and before really understanding one what that cost because it's not cheap so I pretty much put myself into broke town basically borderline bankruptcy because I had to go through schooling and pay for the books and pay for the licensing and the mls fees and Yadda Yadda Yadda. And then you have to pay your broker on top of that a lot of times, you know, just to use a printer.

Speaker 2:5:32So I was really, really struggling at that point. And then two weeks into it, here's that self awareness, a miserable again. Like how can this be, how can I be miserable with everything? I'm trying so many things. How can I be miserable with everything and that's when I realized it's not that I was miserable with real estate, I liked real estate, I didn't like working under somebody. I felt like I was an employee again, so I was like, how can I end game is investing, how can I get into investing and if I don't have any money, and that is when I learned wholesaling and I learned that from another entrepreneurial group, great family to be a part of. They're called secret entourage and they had, they happen to have some materials and they had an interview recently that they had posted and it talked about buying real estate, flipping real estate for free and that obviously piqued my interest and I watched that and went through that and realize that hey, I don't need any money or credit to start. I just need to follow these steps. And that's what I did and that's literally how I took off. I had my first contract after that and like two weeks, two or three weeks.

Speaker 3:6:30Amazing. So I want to go back to something you said about being stubborn and in a lot of similarities between our, our two pads and in our stories. Um, I have to give my mom a lot of credit for. I'm at today. Thank you. Mom's. Yeah. I mean, uh, I, I was already an entrepreneur. I owned a general contracting business, which when I opened it up, I thought it was. I thought it was the greatest thing in the world, right? I'm making these ugly houses beautiful. I'm so proud of the work that I'm doing. And then very quickly I realized I'm miserable. I'm not a contractor. I'm not supposed to be doing this. And I was hired by investors and I'm watching these guys drive up in the Mercedes, the BMW, and they're nice clothes and they walk around for 30 minutes and they point and they tell me what to do and then they walk away and I do all the work and they're making more money than me at the end of the day.

Speaker 3:7:31And um, you know, it, it just got to the point where I was, I was so fed up with go into Home Depot Twenty seven times a day and I couldn't figure out how to systematize my business and I was like, I'm better than this, like I'm smarter than this. And so my mom actually helped me and, and she, she bought my first flip with cash and she allowed us to do the rehab on it. And then she also helped me pay for some education on learning real estate investing. But recently, and, and I did not know this. I did not plan this while you were talking, you had to pull this up on my phone, but I was asked a question about, um, 12 underrated management skills for entrepreneurs. And this was what my quote was, as an entrepreneur, it is vital to allow yourself to be wrong.

Speaker 3:8:19Sometimes the best decision you can make for your business is to deviate from the original vision. Being humble can be what differentiates you from your competitors. You don't always have to know the right answer is for tomorrow, but you need to be able to admit that yesterday's answer wasn't the right one. And the reason why I bring that up is because when I was a a contractor, I was stubborn for a couple of years. I didn't want to make. I didn't want to admit to everybody that I'd made the wrong choice of a career. So I just kept doing. Yeah, I mean it was like so many people were like, RJ, dude, you're killing it. That bathroom did last week was beautiful. And I'm like, yeah, but I made $300 on it. I'm like, I'm glad you thought it was beautiful, but it barely paid the electric bill, you know? And I was, I was broke, I was miserable. And so for people out there that are listening to this, and normally I don't talk this much, but I. It was just something that you touched on, man. Don't, don't sit there and be stubborn with yourself. Make the change. And if you feel like there's something else out there for you, make the change quick sooner than later. So that's my rant for this interview.

Speaker 2:9:30No, that was so perfectly said. It's like to take that a step deeper. So there's such a huge difference between achievement and fulfillment,

Speaker 3:9:39[inaudible] and they're at

Speaker 2:9:41and to go into, you know, what you're speaking about, being stubborn and being able to admit that not maybe you're wrong. Um, you know, not only that, maybe you're wrong, but maybe you need to switch something. Maybe pivot a little bit is that it's amazing to me when everybody that I've noticed that's super successful and since adopting this, like my businesses have exploded as well. I mean over the past few years and you're not grown a ton and had a ton of opportunities and have measured my achievement versus fulfillment and things like that. So every single day I'm literally waking up and going, how can I create the day to day life that is ideal for me? And then that sets me on a path of what I need to do that day. So I literally ask myself that every single morning and you'll see a pattern within the book even of like asking yourself great questions.

Speaker 2:10:22There's a reason for that and what's great is that you can hold an end goal, right? So you can hold nine goal, but then there's a million different paths to possibly get through it. So, you know, ours was real estate. We like real estate, you know, we had a goal of that year, started in GC, mind started as a realtor. We both were able to change paths and still reaching the same goal. So the goal can stay the same, but the path might need adjusted, you know, constantly, you know, almost daily. So it's awesome that you're able to realize that, have the self awareness to realize that, that even when other people were praising you, you're like, I'm feeling unfulfilled though, and that's more important than this bathroom looking tip top, right?

Speaker 3:11:01Literally, the only thing that I enjoyed about that career path was when I got the post, the pictures on facebook and people would praise how greater work looked. I mean, that's how miserable I was in that career path. And uh, and now we still get to do the same thing, right? We flip houses. So we still get to show beautiful pictures and we still get the praise. Um, and, and again, going back to your point, just because this is our path and it's what we've chosen doesn't mean being a realtor or GC or a day trader, can't be somebody else's path. We're just talking about this is what led us to where we are in both of us. Started off in wholesaling. Um, so, so you got two weeks after you got your first property under contract. Walk me through how that translated. You got one under contract, how quickly did you ramp up and were you able to create actual business?

Speaker 2:11:55Yeah, so I had it under contract first within the first couple of weeks. So it took me like two or three weeks to get my first contract. It took me quite awhile to sell it though because I wasn't working backwards in a sense. I was not, I didn't have anybody to sell it to. So I was, at the time I was actually still a realtor. I was still licensed so I actually could have listed it and worked as a realtor on it. But, but I was very determined and I want to make this a investing peace in my life, you know, the main, my main business. So it took me a little while to sell it. But after the pain of not being able to sell it for literally two months, right? And I had to kept going back to the seller and we, the thing that saved that deal was that we actually became friends.

Speaker 2:12:37We're still talking to this day, me and my first ever seller. So we built this really strong relationship and it really became like, hey man, it's not a huge rush. Whenever you're able to put the pieces together, just let me know. We'll do the deal. So I was able to continue networking and letting people know like, Hey, I have this opportunity if you'd be interested. And I learned so much from struggling through that for a couple months that now when I walk into a property or walk into it, you know, a situation, if I'm thinking, you know, now my initial thought is how can I keep this for myself? How can I build this wealth for my family? But even if it's not right for me, how can I make it, you know, create passive income for me, how can I build more freedom for me?

Speaker 2:13:16And you know, what it worked for someone else, I have somebody in mind. So any contract that I have is literally has 100 percent chance of being sold because I don't put anything under contract now that I don't know who I'm selling it to, if, if that's what I'm starting to do. So the first couple months were a struggle without a doubt. I don't know anybody else that started in anything and was a master of it the next week. So exactly. Anytime anybody comes to me and they're like, Hey, I'm really struggling. I know as well. You should be good job. Like continue going out and making mistakes and learning if you can adopt the mindset of, you know, either win or you learn and not only on top of that, when you're taking these failures, when you're getting punched in the face and then the gut and you're like, man, I really feel like the world's coming at me right now.

Speaker 2:14:01If you can remember that those are actually packed, those failures are packed with information that you should be downloading to yourself and then putting it into action. This is why this didn't work so I won't do this, so I'll go do this and pretty soon there's no reason that you shouldn't be doing multiple deals a month with no, none of your own resources, if you will, because you've built such a database in such a network. And to go deeper into the question of how long did it take for me to really ramp up my business after that first deal, it was two to $5 a month every month, like almost every single month because I had worked those pieces out and it became, like you talked about earlier, systematized in a point where I have these three great relationships with buyers that I want to deal with. Right? And I know that can perform. You know, we'd go to the, I mean literally we know each other first name were, you know, we can go to dinner like we have that close of a relationship and I can go to a property and go, hey, it looks like this one that we did once before. Okay, great. And then I already know the prices, everything I know where I need to be at offer wise. So literally you can just start going out and cutting yourself

Speaker 3:15:05checks. Yep. And that's very similar to what happened in my business. Almost identical. I mean, you talk about getting that first deal. I remember getting my first deal and um, I don't still talk to the seller, but because the seller made me use the title company, I still use that same title company, same escrow officer and I consider her part of my business now. Oh for sure. Absolutely. Part of your team. Huge part of your team. Absolutely. And, but the other things is right after that. That's where I had the struggle that, that first deal was so easy. Um, I was taught that you go get a deal under contract and you slap it on craigslist and it gets sold. So I went and got my first deal under contract, slapped it on Craig's list, literally within hours of putting you on craigslist. A guy called me and said, send me the assignment.

Speaker 3:16:02And so I was, I was like, oh my God, I have found the easiest thing in the world. I'm going to be a billionaire in like a year. This is all you have to do. I was like, I can't believe it's this easy. Why isn't everybody doing this? And so, um, you know, we went out and got light the next two to three properties under contract and it didn't go so well, you know, you actually have to build a buyers list and build a rapport with your buyers and, and things along those lines. But, um, you know, like you said, after we, we narrowed it down, we actually got to know are buyers and what their criteria was. That's when the business started being built and we understood what we were doing. And uh, that's when we saw change as well. So it's, uh, it's, it's funny to hear, I mean, you know, todd and I've never actually talked to about our businesses this way to get, but they kind of mirrored each other a little.

Speaker 2:16:54The semester you're going to continue to see them mesh together. I bet.

Speaker 3:16:58And, and now you're, you're talking about passive income. That's also where I'm at and I think that's a, uh, like a usual path, right? You get started in wholesaling because there's no cash, no credit needed. That's what everybody says. Um, so how long did you wholesale before you decided to branch out into other strategies?

Speaker 2:17:20I was pretty primarily wholesaling only like when I say primarily wholesaling only, I mean my mind wasn't even open to other things. Um, so every, every opportunity I ran across and looking back on it now I'm like, oh, so many killer deals that I passed to other people. But you know, what, it built amazing relationships in business opportunities with other people that I don't regret it at all. Like I would do the exact same thing. What else it did is that it really, really taught me how to, how talk to people and how to negotiate and how to work through problems and problem solving. So now when I have a problem in my business now or something that arises, have dealt, I've dealt with something like that before when I was strictly just wholesaling and I understand like how my buyer handled it. So I'm about a year and a half.

Speaker 2:18:08I was really, really gung Ho set. That's all I was going to do. And that is when. So one of my personal, my personal coach, my personal mentor, he actually owns the title company that I use and he kind of took me under his wing and the very beginning as I was struggling and working through things. And he's somebody that owns hundreds of units himself. He's an investor. No, this is just another piece of his business. Right. And that's when we started talking about, you know, how can, even if I'm, if I want to transition, right? The importance of, you know, big lump sum checks are sexy, right? I can't get my 10. I got my 15, but what's the problem with it? I got to go out and do it again. So am I really building a business from. I really just owning a job and I started to realize that I was owning a job and I was actually starting to lose passion for it because I realized that.

Speaker 2:19:02So I was finding myself falling back into this. Oh No, like, I, I don't want to get bored with this. I don't want to get to the point where like, I don't want to do this anymore and I have to learn something new because continuously starting over it isn't really the best way to lead you to the road of your goals. And so we started having conversations and I started and we started talking about, well, how can you create passive income? How can you create streams of income that are always coming to you and no matter whether you're working or not. And obviously rentals is, you know, um, you know, st whether it be single or multifamily is, you know, a great way to do that. But I was still very risk adverse, so I needed another way that I could have the passive income, but not having any responsibility.

Speaker 2:19:49And that's when it really came down to, well, I can structure wholesale deals differently. I got to a point where a $10,000 check wasn't gonna change my life. So I started dealing with my buyers in a way that hey, when you have a rental or whatever type of deal, we're going to structure it a little bit differently. I'm still going to sell it to you, which is totally fine, you know? But instead of a $10,000 check upfront, I went $200 a month for the next 10 years, eight years, five years, seven years. So or whatever it came out too. You know what I mean? Little bit of interest. But what it did was that in what it made me realize, this one, if you've ever, if you've ever tried to wholesale before or anybody that's ever wholesale to deal or been in real estate before, they've had multiple deals where man, it's like $2,500 off from being a deal like so.

Speaker 2:20:34So close, but you know, no one's willing to budge on their numbers and for good reason, you know, it needs to stick within their criteria. What I realized that this did was when I would sell to guys and I would take a promissory note instead of just a lump sum up front is almost every single deal could possibly work because they didn't have to take the extra money out of their pocket to pay me. Their tenant would pay me over time. So they were able to do more deals. They were able to get more property. They were able to cashflow more because I was willing to take the payments over time instead of, you know, hey, I gotta have my $15,000 check now, which created a huge, huge opportunity for more problem solving with my buyers. So anytime that if there was a property, let's just say they're their criteria is that they have to be all in under 20 and there was someone willing to sell at 19 five.

Speaker 2:21:23That's the deal. Still, I can still make five, seven grand over the next two years on that. Now what people normally say when I talk about this, they're like, oh, that's only $200 a month. I admit it is not sexy little streams of income instead of the big pond. It's not as sexy, but I will tell you this, do at one time when that $200 check comes in while you're playing xbox or doing whatever you like to do, you're going to be absolutely addicted to it because you're being paid for doing nothing at this point. You're being paid hundreds of times instead of once and on top of that, the $200 check a month doesn't change your life. I admit that. Maybe it pays your phone bill. What if you do it 10 times, right? What if you do it 20? How many times can you repeat this in the next 24 months?

Speaker 2:22:07Now you have eight, 10, 12, 15 grand a month. That just flows to you without you having to go out and work anymore. Right? And that is the big difference maker. When everything shifted, my wholesaling business to me becoming who I am today of not only owning and holding property, uh, just being super, super creative and everything that I look at and taking everything one step further, like I just put a house under contract, uh, two days ago that normally people would look at it and they go, no way. That's a deal way too much rehab needed a, you're not going to have anything on top when in reality I'm not going to put a dime into it. I'll sell it to a retail buyer for a couple grand down and they can pay me a few hundred dollars a month because there's a huge, huge need for people who can't get a traditional loan but have a few bucks saved up in their pocket.

Speaker 2:22:56Right? So now they can pay me overtime and I am no responsibility. My only job is to cash checks every single month, which is a pretty good job by the way. My only job was to cash checks every month and if they don't pay, I've lien position. I foreclose just like a bank. I've taken no money out of my pocket. I literally created money out of thin air. Yeah. So I, I have interviewed quite a few wholesalers. And you're the first person who has brought this up. Not Surprising to me either. Nobody knows about it, nobody talks about it. Have you have you come up with a name for this strategy because you're, you're basically like owner financing, seller financing your wholesale fee and yeah. So, so, so what, what is it? We need to come up with

Speaker 3:23:46a title for this. This is a whole new strategy. We do need to come up with a cool name for this. Yeah. And we need to put a little tm at the end of it. I totally, exactly. This is, this is, this is exciting. I like this. A whole new strategy to wholesale here. So, so is that your main strategy now? Is that how you're building all of your passive income or are you taking down in owning actual rental properties?

Speaker 2:24:10I do both. So I have a very specific criteria for what I'll hold onto. And if it does not meet that criteria, I will still buy the house, but I'll just sell it. Uh, I'll resell it and hold a note on it. So my whole goal again is when I wake up in the morning, how can I create the day to day life? That is totally ideal for me. What is, what does the most beautiful day to day for me? What does the House look like? Like what does the family look like? What are the cars look like? Where is it at? How close is it to the beach? It's on the beach. Just let me tell you what I mean. Like what does the weather look like? I mean absolutely everything and everything that I do has to do with me living life on my terms and every single time that I created another note, even if it's only for a couple hundred dollars, I have promissory notes that pay me as little as $200 a month and I have some that pay me as much as $5,000 a month.

Speaker 2:25:00And it's that stuff that whether I go to work the next day or not, I'm going to be paid. And you can do this with anything too. So I have mobile homes that I own security on. I love owning debt. My goal is to actually own a billion dollars in debt. There's a reason banks are so well off. Right? And this is what you're doing is you're becoming the bank. Yup. You don't. And you don't have to create it. You don't have to take any money to actually lend you create money out of thin air. So if I have a house that I'm willing to sell for $40,000, I have $5,000 in it and I sell for $5,000 down on paper. It looks like I lended somebody 40 grand, right? And they had to pay me interest. But in reality it's literally not a dime because they paid me my five grand down.

Speaker 2:25:42So I'm free and clear in my house. I've literally created a line of income for free that'll pay me for the next decade. And also what's really cool is let's say the house. So the market that I'm in, you can buy houses 20, 30, 40 grand, and so when I buy a property at discount sometime, you know, I look for problems to solve first, I don't look for property. So when the problems large enough, the numbers no longer matter, right? So I can buy houses for four or five, six, seven grand, then I, if they don't fit my criteria, I can sell them on that money down. And what's what's cool about it is that it's solving a problem for the seller, solving a problem for my family and it's solving a problem for a buyer. So everybody's happy at the end of the day.

Speaker 3:26:30So. Okay, I'm glad you brought up the market that you're in. Okay. Because not everybody is in a market that you can buy houses for that cheap. So for someone who's in a market where you can't buy houses for five, $6,000 down,

Speaker 2:26:45how could they achieve the same? How could they utilize the same strategy that you're talking about? Say Save the cheapest you can buy a house is 50 to $60,000. How could they achieve that? Same goal, which is awesome, and this is actually one of my favorite questions because that's usually the one that people go to when I talk about it. At first they're like, well, I live in, so I use bay, I'm even going to use bay area San Francisco as the example, so I guarantee that you live somewhere in between the market that I can invest in and living there, right? There's going to be something in between there. The first and easiest answer, which is semi cheap, but it's still an answer, is that you do not have to invest where you live. You can be investing anywhere in the world. So my market is your market.

Speaker 2:27:32That's just a decision that you can make, right? Secondly is that this is all relative. If you live in Bay area San Francisco and you can't get a house for less than 900 grand, right? And let's, let's say you find a huge problem to solve because you're still needing to search for problems, not property. You know you're not going to find to get a deal like this on the mls, right? So you're going to be coming across somebody, you're going to be building a network and a database and putting your name out there as a problem solver. So someone's going to come to you and say, you know, hey, there's a death in the family. Uh, there's multiple siblings, they all have their own properties and other states and they can't deal with it, right? They don't want to deal with it. So you ask them what's the best way that I can serve you?

Speaker 2:28:16What's the best way for me to take, you know, take this problem down. I've actually had people giving me property before for free because they didn't have either the resources or the knowhow or didn't want the responsibility of handling, you know, utilities, taxes, insurance, that kind of deal. So like, hey, please just take this off my shoulders. And that was a large enough value for them that I got a property for free. Not, it's happened more than once. To me, when you approach yourself as a problem solver as opposed to just someone who's going swing numbers around. So let's say you're in bay area houses are a million five and you get one for half a million dollars, 600 grand, 900 grand, even if you want to use this strategy. It's funny because when people are in those areas, they just have more cash to put down.

Speaker 2:29:03Don't be afraid to ask for that amount down. So it's going to be different. For one, it's going to be difficult for you to probably turned down half a million dollars up front and turn it into a note, right? But if you look at it, this is what banks do. If you look at this longterm, that's the absolute key is switching your perception from what am I going to do tomorrow to what am I going to be doing in 10 years? And when you can switch that from tomorrow to 10 years to 15 years, you want to keep getting paid every single day, every single month without having to necessarily work any harder for it and trade any more time for it. So if you're in a bay area of San Francisco, more people have money to put down. So you can get a larger amount down, even if you hold, you know, a different position, a different lien position and um, say you're in second position instead of first because they can put all of it down.

Speaker 2:29:57The important, the important key is that they can put a large chunk of it down and then they can pay you every single month and you're secure. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So that was kind of what I was wanting to get to and I just wanted to hear if you had the same answers as I would have given. So I'm glad to know that I, I followed todd strategy there. Um, so my other question is, is for the people that are listening that are like, this is great, this sounds amazing. I want to do it, but I'm struggling finding leads. I, I, yeah, I want to be a problem solver, but I don't know how to find the problems. What are some of the best tips that you can give the people on how to find those problems? Start telling absolutely everybody what you do for some reason when people are trying something new or they're looking to grow and something they're very hesitant to share what they do for whatever reason you should hang out with me and my wife sometime.

Speaker 2:30:51My wife can't stand going out with me sometimes because I'm telling the waiter what I do like the, like the clerk, wherever we're at, everyone's gonna know what I do. Hey, I solve problems in real estate. You know, what do you do? And uh, because it gets the conversation going. And then what that does is like any, because everybody knows about real estate so that what that does is they go, oh my cousin Greg has a house. Oh, well I'd love to talk to cousin Greg. Have him call me. Here's my number. You know that, that kind of deal. So getting, building a database, building a network and getting your name out there is absolutely far and beyond the best thing that you can possibly do, especially over time that, that web of network is going to grow out. Know anything that you could do monetarily with yellow letters, bandit signs, things like that, but it's kind of one of those things like you need to be doing that, but at the same time, if you want to be locating problems, you need to be looking in your area and seeing possibly how other people are finding problems in your area.

Speaker 2:31:48If they're doing direct mailing, great. You can give that a shot. If they're doing bandit signs, if you see bandit signs everywhere, uh, there's probably a reason bandit signs are everywhere. It's because they work, right? So people are not doing it because it doesn't work. Exactly. So when you look at other people that are doing things, you're like, and then the other problem comes in and is like, oh, it feels oversaturated. Well, how can you set yourself aside? How can you be a little bit different than, can you sign me bigger? Can you be more unique? Can you have a sticker on a gas pump? Can you go one step further than other people? If you look at, say Code Enforcement, right? People like to chase code enforcement because code enforcement is a painful situation and those guys are usually on top of the sellers or could be sellers all the time harassing them, you know, they're basically not people.

Speaker 2:32:35They are just numbers on a spreadsheet which is sickening, so usually a pretty solid lead to go after if it's difficult to get the code enforcement list from your county or from your courthouse, like that's a great way to start and a great way to start building those leads because other people aren't going to want to do it because you have to jump through one more hoop. If you have to jump through three hoops to get a lead, you're going to be the only guy with that lead. Yup. So staying super, super consistent and always telling everybody what you do is going to be the best way to start attracting these leads to you and just do on your social media even. I mean you need to be telling every. You need to be obsessed and letting people know what you do every single day.

Speaker 3:33:15So two things, how much does it cost to tell people? What you do, it costs exactly $0. Okay? Alright, so for everybody that says they don't have the marketing budget to be successful from two guys that started off with basically no money, it costs $0 to tell people what you do and you will get leads and you will get deals and then you'll have money. The second thing is, is being different in your marketing. When you do have a marketing budget and your spending those marketing dollars, very few small tweaks and adjustments here and there on the different types of marketing. For example, direct mail, we just recently made a small change to our direct mail that made us stand out a little bit more than everybody else. Nothing. It's nothing that anybody hasn't heard of. Everybody's heard of it, but we just did it and we were inundated with over 400 phone calls two weeks ago. That's insane. From one direct mail campaign in a market where I am told consistently you cannot do direct mail. You cannot compete with all the big people. It's impossible. Dad, 400 phone calls. So it's not. It's not dead. It's just about being intelligent and making yourself stand out. So it just, like you said though, tell people what you do. That's all you're doing with your marketing. Just you're telling them what you do. You just need to make sure that it stands out more than everybody else. That's it.

Speaker 2:34:43Huge piece. Direct mailing for me that helped me become successful in it was you just kind of make it easier for them to call. You have to make it easier for them to read. So mine's super, super short and I don't even, I don't actually, uh, I'm going to call it Lincoln. Stanford, like sticker glue, the back of the envelope anymore. It's just stuffed in the back. So it's easier to open. Even like those little, those little things. I get a 12 to 15 percent return rate on letters that I send out. That's how many calls they get back. That's crazy. Which is crazy high and I totally understand that. You're not going to get that everywhere probably, but yeah, there's a, there's a ton of people right now in markets. They get one percent and they're hating you right now. For sure, if all of us will come to his market though. Yeah, yeah. If I send out 100 letters, I'll get 12 to 15 calls. Minimum.

Speaker 3:35:33That's crazy. That's awesome. I mean, um, so from there, where are you today in your business? You said you're, you're taking down, you're trying to create wealth, passive income. You have the book now. So let, let's talk about the book. What, what caused you to want to write the book and spread that content to people?

Speaker 2:35:58Man, first. Ah, you know, what's funny is that I wrote the book in between the hours of 1:00 AM and 5:00 AM and I will, you know, I've been a little bit of a night owl all my life, but literally I never thought I would ever write a book and let's, let's face it, there's a lot of real estate books out there, right? Right. And you know, and we've obviously read a lot of them and as I continue to read through them, it just gives some of them just give me an absolute rage that here's how awesome your life can be for 300 pages with no action steps. So someone gets excited, they feel great about it, and then two weeks later when their life hasn't changed because they haven't taken any action because they don't know what to do, it wears off and suddenly real estates to blame. Right? And then their life is in the same position, which is really, really frustrating to me.

Speaker 3:36:52If you follow me on good reads, you will know the last book that I read about real estate investing, I spent an entire Sunday afternoon reading it and what I got done, I threw it a halfway across my house and said they literally repeated the same thing for 350 pages.

Speaker 2:37:07Yes. And it's all like just how great it can be without any. Exactly. Without any showing of like, hey, this is what it took and this is what I had to go through. And this is where you start. So that being said, there are some great books with some action steps and there are some great books with some mindset. I've never come across a book in which both of them were together. Now one of my favorite book series ever is called the go giver series. And it inspired me to write in a way that I wanted to create both of them in one. So I wanted to put them both together. So I wanted to create something where, you know, you could, you could go into the book and let's say you get stuck at a section or you get stuck at step four, right?

Speaker 2:37:51And you're like, well how do I, you know, I don't remember how I can locate buyers. You can go back in the book, go to step four, and it's like, oh, this is how I do it. Then you just take action on it. It's literally a step by step guide. It's a checklist for you. It's supposed to create the action for you. Now other books have had similar actions. I don't want to call them action steps but actionable content in it, but the problem was that they didn't build your mind in a way that the second that something went wrong, you would quit because you have to be in a certain mindset to ever complete your first deal or to ever scale your business. So the whole first book split in half. The whole first half of the book is completely on mindset and building yourself up to a point where you are confident and understanding and that this is a process and that this is a path and that as long as you stick to the path, I actually 100 percent guarantee that you will get a deal and I put that out into the world. I literally 100 percent guarantee that you will get a deal if you do not quit in the first half of the book, teaches you how to not quit. So once it triggers that point of like, okay, I'm ready for this. Here's step one, go do step one. What's step one is complete, go do step two and so on, and then literally if you are following the book and you're taking action along with the book, by the time you're done reading this

Speaker 3:39:07book, you've completed the deal. Right? And I love that. I mean, because honestly I, I naturally struggle as an adult to read books like that is just one of my downfalls. I, I want to, but I get frustrated, I get frustrated because nowadays it's so easy to have content just right in front of us via the Internet. And so when I'm reading books, I get frustrated when I come across things and I don't have that, those actionable steps because I'm the kind of guy where it's like if you tell me, hey rj, you're going to go walk through that door and you're going to make a thousand dollars before you can even say, hey, rj, go walk through the door. I'm already through the door, the doors, right? I'm like, whatever. I'm doing it right now. I'm going to find out what's through this door. So, uh, I get frustrated with books.

Speaker 3:39:56So I love the fact that you took that the mindset is important, but also giving those actionable steps after you have your mindset. Correct. So I, I love, I love how you have the flow of the book. I'm actually shared with you before now that I have people reaching out to me and they want to learn how to wholesale. I'm telling them that they have to go read your book, um, because I, I believe in what you've written in the book and, and I see the success that you've had. I mean, uh, you, you do a great job of getting yourself out there every Friday night you go live on facebook and in recently you have talked about, um, you, you want to create financial freedom for forever body. Talk about that and why is that important to you?

Speaker 2:40:46Absolutely, yeah. My life's purpose with every fiber of my being, my life's purpose is to leave this world a more financially secure place. Then when I came into it and I want more people to be able to pursue their life's purpose without having to fund it through a traditional job, I think the world would be a better place because of that. It wasn't that long ago that there was an agreement between a government and the land and people that if you work for 40 years will take care of you. You can have the house, the two and a half kids, the dog, the white picket fence, right? That was the agreement and you never have to worry about anything. Information Age hits 2000 deal's off, deal's off, right? I'm watching people plunder into bad debt that they can never get out of looking for multiple bankruptcies.

Speaker 2:41:41People finding and looking at money as fulfillment or thinking it's fulfillment, and then even possibly receiving it, realizing it's not fulfillment and then being even worse off because of it. When in reality money is a tool and it will just magnify who we truly are already. So if we are somebody that's good, we're going to give more. Right? If you're somebody that's bad, you got more to be bad with, but that's much more rare than you know, some generally people are good. And what's amazing is that people are not that far away from being where they want to be financially. It's just a few adjustments and it starts with the mind and after, because I myself had to go through this, this, you know, uh, one of my favorite people in the world is Tom Bilyeu. Um, and he speaks about, it's not the many problems, it's the one problem that affects you, right?

Speaker 2:42:33So I had financial problems earlier in my life because of the badge poor choices that I made, right? So once I learned how to get through that, I realized, well, anybody can get through this, but nobody knows that because nobody knows how money actually works. So every Friday, which by the way, it was super comfortable to decide to do like, hey, I'm going to go live every Friday in front of as many people as possible and talk about the most taboo topic on the planet money. Right? So exactly. Super, super comfortable. Right? So it was not easy to do, uh, but yeah, I do go live every Friday and I'm building a community around setting people financially free. That's awesome man. And whether in the best part is whether they want to see if they want a job. If you want a nine to five and that fulfills you, that's awesome. But what I'm telling you is that you can actually magnify that through changing a few things with your finances that way you go to work because you want to, not because you have to, which is huge difference.

Speaker 3:43:27Right? Well, and I think this goes back to kind of prove why you've been successful. Um, the fact that you, you sit out and you say, okay, every Friday I'm going to go live just to give back and help people I'm in. I'm sure you're just like, I am with this podcast. I don't really care if one, if only one person listens to this interview and it makes them take a step to better their lives, that's fine. Yes, I'm okay with it. It, it changed one person's life. That's amazing. Um,

Speaker 2:44:06showing people that show up, not for the ones that don't, the ones that don't, it's okay if they don't because I'm going to be better tomorrow. So if you don't join me today, that's fine. If you join me tomorrow, you'll be better off because of it. Right. So that's, that's the mindset I've adopted on that.

Speaker 3:44:20Yeah. And that was a, actually was a guest on another podcast and uh, I don't know, the conversation just kind of spiraled into this and it was funny because I had this moment where the day before we had closed on a flip and title had written us a $70,000 check and that same day I had posted something on facebook and a gentleman wrote on there, RJ, what you give in your podcasts is worth more money than I could ever pay you and has changed my life. And at the end of the day I could care less about the $70,000 check. But that comment that he made impacted me so much and it was just, it's funny because like 3:40 years ago it would have been the complete opposite. Like I would have all been about, oh my God, this is such a massive check and this is changing my life.

Speaker 3:45:21And uh, it, it is funny how things like that just change, change you as a person and as you achieved certain levels, you different things become more important to you. And uh, I know that's the same thing with you and why you give back on Fridays like you do. So for everybody listening, follow Todd Fleming on facebook, he goes live every Friday. They're, they're awesome. I'm definitely followed those. I'm completely changed the subject here. But uh, uh, and you have no idea that I'm going to bring this up, but I have to. So when todd goes live, uh, he always goes live from the same location and he has this rack of baseball hats and I'm a hat guy. Oh, nice. I didn't know that. I have to understand what in the world is going on here. Are you just a major league baseball hat fan or do you not have teams or what is going on? Man, you have every team back

Speaker 3:46:25I don't even know what that is you're wearing right now. Is that a minor league?

Speaker 2:46:28So I've actually started collecting minorly hats because I have all the big leagues a covered. So this is actually an Akron rubberducks hat and I have multiple ones of this too. So either home road alternate. Uh, I even started doing batting practice. So one, I am a hat guy. They are the source of my power right now. I am a hat guy. That's how I feel too. But to a baseball was my life until I was 24. I'd never had a job until I was 24. I was playing baseball full time. Um, I played at the University of Akron, so I was a division one athlete and then I had some aspirations to obviously go professional play professionally and when that ended around the age of 23, 24 a because my opportunity to essentially run out with scouts and uh, you know, letting me know like, hey, you know, you could stick around this level but it's not going to be the next level.

Speaker 2:47:22I'm actually a pretty small guy comparatively to most of the guys in the bigs and I'm only five, 10, five, 1,150 slash 60. So the two small comment was all too real and uh, but I love baseball but I'm a die hard baseball fan and I think it's the greatest sport in the world. You know, it's America's pastime for a reason. You can't convince me of anything otherwise. And uh, my favorite team is actually the Pittsburgh pirates. My father played for the pirates in the early seventies, so my love for them started like at birth, but it's baseball first favorite team second. So I love being able to collect all the hats and wear a different hat every single day. So yeah, I actually looked like a lead store. My entire walls covered. Yes it does.

Speaker 3:48:06So that's awesome man. I'm, I'm, I'm very similar in that regard where uh, I have my teams, um, but I'm a little bit. But like for example, I'm a huge Dallas Stars Fan. We're only the biggest dallas stars fan out there and we're missing the playoffs this year, but I love the Stanley Cup playoffs. So I have to have a team. Yeah. So I'm going to, I'm going to be pulling for the Tampa Bay lightning and I have a Tampa bay lightening hat so everybody at work gives me a hard time because they're like, oh, so the stars last. So now you're a lightning fan. Well it's also because I liked the hat, so you know

Speaker 2:48:41the logo, but you have to have a team. Right. You know. So,

Speaker 3:48:46uh, that's awesome that, you know, that's just a little bit of a side note just because I always see the hats and I'm like, man, I see some people make comments on your facebook live. I like what's up with the hats man? I'm like, I have to ask this guy. I mean, I very rarely have I ever seen someone I think have more hats than me, but I, I'm pretty sure you have me topped.

Speaker 2:49:06People have actually started to request like at the beginning of the show, like to request what hat I wear, whatever team that there's favorite, but I just have such a respect for all the guys that are able to do that. And I have friends that are in the big leagues right now that I played college ball with that you know, who I'm able to follow and interact with and it's just incredible to hear about, you know, the ups and downs of it, you know, they, they still love the game, but at the same time I'm like, Hey, what's the worst part? And you're like, oh, the travel. I'm never home. Like, it's funny because always my entire life I was like, if I don't play baseball, I don't know what I'd ever do, I don't think I can be happy. And it turns out that my ideal life that I think about every single day, it's not being on the road.

Speaker 2:49:43Right? So everything that I've created now is I actually have more freedom than these guys. It probably stopped more money, don't get me wrong, but we just, we just talked about how money is achievement, not necessarily fulfilling. And what's crazy is that without the financial training that hopefully they're tuning in on Fridays and you know, consuming the content without the financial training in 30 years, I don't know where there'll be because the checks right now don't really matter. You need to keep them coming. You need to keep them growing and you need to make it, you have it working for you. So I actually really worry about some of the guys. Uh, but so, so hopefully they can, uh, they can take something from me as I've taken, you know, some from them.

Speaker 3:50:23Absolutely. Well, I'll have to get you sent a titanium hat. I'll get you set one and I'll have, I'll have to see it on a facebook live video, but uh, hey man, I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us today. For the listeners that want to find a way to contact you, what's the best way they can reach you?

Speaker 2:50:40Oh, the best way to reach me is really facebook. My profile picture is currently one of me and my book. Uh, but that's, that's probably the absolute best. That's probably the absolute best way between that and joining the kingdom, which is the kingdom real estate.com.

Speaker 3:50:55Okay. Awesome man. Well thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with this day and uh, I'm going to have to have you come back on a, there's just not enough time in one show for, for all of the content that you can provide for everybody, but a very much appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us today.

Speaker 2:51:13Absolutely. And the, uh, the second book is underway. Part two is underway. So if you have a way I can come back on after that actually is. There you go. That's what I was going to say there. There's episode too. Yeah, yeah, that'd be absolutely perfect. So the first book is 100 percent on wholesaling a how to get it done, mindset and everything. It's called. If you can't wholesale after this, I've got nothing for you, which you can find on Amazon. And then at the end of the book it's actually built in scaling. So it does talk about creating that passive income through wholesaling. So if you had more questions since on that it walks you through that. And then the second book here is going to be called. This is actually the first time I released my name is going to be on this podcast. Oh here we go. It's actually going. So it's going to stick with the. I've got nothing for you series and it's going to be called if you can't cash flow after this, I've got nothing for you and it's gonna be all on the strategy which we talked about. And then transitioning that into actual ownership and the benefits of each. Awesome, awesome man.

Speaker 3:52:04Put a link in the show notes for the book on Amazon. And, uh, again, thank you so much for everything that you're doing for the real estate investing community with those books are very much. Look forward to the second part coming out and uh, the third part as well. I, um, that's, uh, that's awesome. So thank you. And, uh, we'll, we'll talk to you soon. Okay.

Speaker 2:52:26Thank you my man. I truly, truly appreciate the opportunity. That honor is all mine. All right, bye. Bye.

Speaker 1:52:33Thanks so much for listening to the titanium vault with your host rj veins. The third for more info and to stay up to date, visit www.podcastonthetitaniumvault.comonfacebook.com/, but titanium vault. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review and we'll catch you next time on the timetable.